Saturday, November 5, 2011

You could die from excitement at North Korea's Fun Fair

Four words you never expected to see strung together: "North Korean Amusement Park." Journalist Alex Hoban snapped a whole series of pics at what I like to call "Potemkin Park".

How could anyone not love the land that's home to the Mangyongdae fun fair, the world's sh***iest, most depressing quasi-theme park?

...Situated Only 12km from Pyongyang's city center, Mangyongdae is a place for thrill-seeking North Koreans to come to and unwind after a hard week of slave labor, relentless scavenging for food, KGB hide and seek, and trimming the imperial lawns with scissors. My guide for the day insisted that the park is open seven days a week and always very, very busy. Which is funny because when we got there stagnant emptiness lingered in the air like a fart in a graveyard filled with the bodies of political dissidents...

...Confused as to why we weren't immediately allowed to leave the bus, it was only after about 20 minutes and a lot of frantic arm waving from the woman at the gate that another, far sh***ier bus turned up and we realized what was going on...

...These poor schmucks—or lucky schmucks, perhaps?—were wheeled out with strict orders to constantly remain 20 steps ahead of us and look like they were having A+ fun in the otherwise deserted park, lest anyone get suspicious that we weren't in Disneyland after all. Aside from us Western interlopers, they were the only people there. Strange task, but at least they were being paid a fair and decent wage to prop up one man's delusions of dictatorial grandeur, I thought (very quietly) to myself...

...Oh look, a girl on a merry-go-round. Maybe the whole world is wrong about North Korea. Maybe it really is a prosperous, utopian First World funland...

...It's a shame that North Koreans are treated by their rulers as basically an expendable race of people. Before we were allowed on the ride, the guys in charge sent a few terrified farmers on test runs like a shipment of human flour sacks...

In North Korea, a totalitarian, socialist and fascist dictatorship, there are no limits on the government's power over the people.

And that's what is troubling here at home -- because Democrats are both unable to articulate any limits on government and they are unwilling to abide by the Constitution, a document intended to check the government's power over individuals.

Slowly, inexorably, the hard left Democrat Party is turning America into a socialist welfare state that is ripe for "fundamental transformation", in the words of our own Dear Leader.